The Sargasso Sea
 

I'm sitting at home on a Friday night, drinking some wine, watching "Wide Sargasso Sea" to see what all of Stevie's inspiration was about (it's horrible...don't bother, curious Ledgies), when I got a little curious.

I googled "Sargasso Sea," which led me to its Wikipedia page. The following line jumped out at me immediately:

"The Sargasso Sea is the only "sea" without shores."

...sound familiar?

Granted, it's Wikipedia, so take it for what it's worth (I didn't realize what I was typing right there until I was halfway through it!)...just thought it was interesting!

When I just read your post, I was like, seas with no shores - that's in a Stevie song! Planets of the universe-

"They into the seas, THAT HAVE NO SHORES.."

Cool! :)

Jamie

Oh, and that movie does suck. I rented it a couple years ago

Exactly! I'm not sure if this little factoid is something that is widely known, or something that Stevie would have known ten years ago (it still feels crazy saying that) when she added the new lyrics to POTU. Or perhaps it was one of her little "premonitions"...

I'm shocked a rabid Stevie fan hasn't added Stevie's song "Wide Sargasso Sea" to the Popular Culture References yet. ;)

I've read up on this sea before, and am rather baffled by it. How can a sea exist if it's completely surrounded on all sides by an ocean? :shrug: I understand it has it's own regional properties which make it unique and set it apart from the North Atlantic in some ways, but I just don't get how it can be labeled as an entirely different body of water than which it's wholly contained within. And I have a bachelor's degree in geography! :laugh:

no wonder it's "wide"

I looked at the map:

http://media.point2.com/p2a/htmltext...a/original.jpg

No shores as it's really part of what we call the Atlantic Ocean.

Good pick up on Planets Jamie!

Louie, does it have to do with the currents?

That's pretty much the way wikipedia explains it. The Sargasso Sea is essentially a "dead spot" in the middle of the North Atlantic. It has oceanic water currents on all sides... and all currents basically dump their contents into the Sargasso Sea. The sea is also in the horse latitudes... aka a generally windless area. All of this means the water is very calm and clear, and a repository for all of the materials water and air currents in the North Atlantic. I understand how the Sargasso Sea has it's own regional identity, but I still don't quite understand how it warrants being named it's own sea since it's not bounded by anything physical (other than water currents). :confused:

The movie is dreadful, but the BBC did a two part min-series a couple of years ago that was ok. It only really makes sense, and you may only like it, if you're read Jane Eyre and are a fan of that one though. I love the novel!

I ordered the novel Wide Sargasso Sea just b/c of the song on Stevie's album. :laugh:
Unfortunately, it hasn't arrived yet. Ordinarily, I'd be annoyed right about now, but it's given me time to read Jane Eyre, which is wonderful.

I'm sort of confused about the line in Stevie's song "Through the smoke and the fire...they never found her." If that's referring to Bertha torching Mr. Rochester's house, then they did indeed "find her." So I don't get it. Unless they changed some things for Wide Sargasso Sea. :shrug:

This works out well - you really should read Jane Eyre first - and it is a wonderful novel! Love the Bronte's!

Interesting find. Actually Stevie got that line from an Edgar Allen Poe piece called "Dreamland" here's a portion of the poem :

Into seas without a shore;
Seas that restlessly aspire,
Surging, unto skies of fire;

The "Skies of fire" line should sound familiar also.

Ah yes...I did know that. This must just be another one of Stevie's "premonitions," like the white-winged dove nesting in AZ, and Rhiannon being more than just a name in a silly novel.

The current certainly creates a contrast. I think it's very interesting that the waters in the sea really don't move. Yet, you could have a raging tidal wave in the ocean around the immobile Sargasso. It is really, never have I been a blue calm sea. I have always been a storm.

It works perfectly for Stevie.

Michele

Oh and for song and romantic purposes, the difference in temperature too. I mean, if you're shipwrecked and drowning and on the verge of freezing to death in the frigid ocean, maybe if you can find the warmer, calmer Sargasso sea in the midst of that ocean you will survive.

You love to be twisted, but maybe if you fought the wind and the cold and the rage and made your way to the heart and love that's in the middle of it all, you might have survived as a couple.

Michele

:laugh: I love you Michele! :xoxo:

Seriously, even though we've had that song title for a while now, I never thought about how the phenomenon of the Sargasso Sea fit so well into the theme of Stevie's lyrics until just today. I just thought, "Hm. Pretty title," but this thread has made me realize it's more fitting than I could have imagined actually. Indeed the energies of those Sargasso currents could have something to do with the disappearances in and mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle, which take us all the way back to HAHTF:laugh:.

And the idea of those currents swirling in a direction that is counter to the ocean around the sea is a lovely metaphor for Stevie and FM.

Michele

You know who also mentions the sargasso sea is none other then fellow Mac member Bob Welch, in at least one live performance of Bermuda Triangle, in his long spoken part in the middle who speaks of the Sargasso Sea.

Way down in the triangle, where the sea was smooth as glass, giving you one answer to a question that you never thought you'd ask . . .

There's beauty in them thar magnetic fields.

Michele

I'm basically obsessed with the novel. I first read it in ninth grade, not long after reading Jane Eyre, and it inspired me to read The Blue Hour (biography of Jean Rhys), see After Mrs. Rochester (a play about Jean Rhys and Bertha Mason), and take several college courses on the art, history, and literature of the Caribbean). I honestly can't think of another novel that's led to such an ongoing interest. So when I found out Stevie, too, was inspired by it, I pretty much did a happy dance.
The sea itself doesn't come up much in the novel--I really didn't know about the properties of it. But hearing about how unique it is--it certainly fits. Jean talks a lot, as Bertha and in her personal letters, about the isolation she feels in England. That travelers and travel guides made so many assumptions about her homeland but really never understood how different it was from England. On a symbolic level, it really works: a sea without shorelines, a culture defined by a history no outsider could understand. A gulf between the Caribbean and England that was hard to define.
It seems like something that would work for Stevie. She writes about isolation, frustration and anger well. I can't wait to hear the full version.

the song inspired by the book not the movie...
 

The shortest part, Part Three, is once again from the perspective of Antoinette, now known as Bertha, as she lives in the Rochester mansion, which she calls the "Great House". It traces her relationship with Grace, the servant who is tasked with 'guarding' her in England. Narrating in a stream of consciousness, Bertha decides to take her own life as she believes it to be her destiny...

it appears that the Smoke and the fire...will be apart of the song, but I do believe that Stevie writes about such subjects as going insane or death...this album seems to be very dark...

This would have given me a boner if I had a wiener.

Yeah I'm in Florida so to me the east coast is just the Atlantic :shrug: and the west coast you have the Gulf.

Been a Florida Forum member for a few years now and I have never heard anyone call the Atlantic ocean side "The Sargasso Sea".

W hat you do hear a lot of, especially during hurricane season from tv news and weathermen, is "The Bermuda High" or "We're keeping an eye out on this newly formed tropical depression in the Atlantic or the Gulf"

Mish, you been nippin' at the cooking sherry?

Well, the water is about 68 degrees Farenheit, compared to the freezing ocean water around it. It is a haven. Some sea life specifically go there to spawn, due to the heat.

But you know what I was actually thinking about when I wrote that? Jack and Rose in Titanic and his death.

Michele

This song is one of my favorites on the album. Stevie watched the 1993 version of Wild Sargasso Sea movie, starring Karina Lombard and Nathaniel Parker. Some might want to see the film--I bought it cheap on Amazon, then found later it was up on youtube in 10 parts:

As others have mentioned elsewhere (I think on this site), Jane Eyre was written first by Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855), and Wide Sargasso Sea is an imagined prequil, written by Jean Rhys (1890-1979). There are reviewers that think the Wild Sargasso Sea movie is quite off the book, and misses the absolute sad plight of women (in this case Antoinette/Bertha--who was essentially placed in an arranged marriage, etc), the poor care of the mentally ill, treatment of people in other cultures, and many other subjects that could have been developed more poignantly--and focuses more on erotica. I do see the point of the reviewers. Still, this song picks up on the whole feel of the film, and, I think, the book.

If you haven't read Jane Eyre or watched any of the movie versions (one is out right now), I do recommend watching the 1944 version starring a young and fairly intimidating Orsen Welles ("we will serve no wine before it's time")--it's available "On Demand" if you like really old films.

I think the combined team of Nicks & Stewart do an amazing job in capturing the whole story in a 5 1/2 minute song--via the music, with it's driving beat, blazing guitars, Stevie's, Sharon & Lori's harmonies, and even the clapping at the end. I would love to have seen this song being made in person! The performance video we have seen is captivating.

I think it's one of the most powerful songs on the album.

I've read the book, and the '93 film really is just basically soft-core porn. Which is fine, if that's what you're in the mood for, but not the point of the story at all.

Jane Eyre is one of my favorite books, and I loved the character of Mr. Rochester, so I was not thrilled with the way he was essentially eviscerated in Wide Sargasso Sea.

I didn't know there was an older film version - I might have to check it out.

PotU is a song about Lindsey ;)

Never knew it was off the fla. coast!! I'm always going down to Fla. and then that map says it's in the tropic of Cancer and I'm a Cancer/Moon Child! No wonder I'm attracted to going there all the time.

Hmmmmm...interesting, looks to be in the area of the infamous Bermuda Triangel where ships and planes disappear

they go into the sea
that has no shores........ (see all the previous posts about the Sargasso Sea)
haunted by that same closed door......(Wasn't Bertha kept behind a closed door in a locked room?)
looking up at skies on fire ....(" in the smoke and the fire."..)
leaving nothing left of us to discover ("they never found her")